Syllabus and Reading List
Introduction to Economic HistoryEconomics 210ABrad DeLong and Barry EichengreenSpring 2018University of California, BerkeleyWednesday 1:00-3:00 p.m.648 Evans Hall Syllabus and Reading ListEconomics 210a is required of Ph.D. students in the first year of the graduate program. The course is designed to introduce a selection of themes from the economic history literature (not to present a narrative account of world economic history). Emphasis is on the insights that history can provide to the practicing economist.Class meetings consist of a mixture of lecture and discussion. Because discussion will focus on issues raised by the assigned readings, readings should be completed before class. Your grade will be based 50 percent on weekly memos due at the beginning of each class, and 50 percent on the research paper (where the latter 50 percent will be based on the synopsis you submit prior to spring break and the paper you submit at the end of instruction). Extra credit will be given for informed classroom discussion.Weekly MemosA memo on each week’s readings is due at the beginning of the class in which those readings are discussed. You will find the memo questions on Professor DeLong’s 210a subpage () and on the bCourses page for this class. Typically the week’s question will be posted on the Thursday six days before the class when your memo is due.Your memos should be one page, and certainly no more than two pages (12-point type). They cannot be exhaustive or provide definitive answers. But they can explain why a question is important, and they can draw on assigned readings to answer it.Research PaperPapers are due on Friday, May11th. Send an electronic copy to both instructors, and put a copy in Professor Eichengreen’s mail box in Economics Department reception in 530 Evans Hall. The office is open 9:00-4:00. The paper should not exceed 25 pages.The submission process involves two benchmarks. You should discuss your paper topic during office hours with one of your instructors during the first half of the semester and submit a brief paper prospectus before spring break (by 4:00 PM Friday, March 23rd – electronic copies to both instructors, also to Professor Eichengreen’s mailbox). That prospectus should explain why the topic is important, present your hypothesis, describe the materials, and detail the approach that will be used to analyze it. Your paper should provide new evidence and analysis of a topic in economic history. You should use the tools of economics to pose and answer as best you can a historical question. The paper should have historical substance. This is not a requirement in applied economics or econometrics that can be satisfied by relabeling the variables in theoretical models taught elsewhere or just by applying new statistical techniques to heavily-worked data. TopicThe paper can cover any topic in economic history. The only requirement is that the topic must genuinely involve the past. What is the economic past? One answer is a period when the economic environment was significantly different from today. You as author and researcher must make the case. Comparisons of past and current events are fine, but heavy focus on current events is likely to be problematic.EvidenceHistorical evidence comes in many forms. The evidence could be a list of goods traded or a statement by government officials of what they were trying to accomplish. Economic historians sometimes use econometrics, although tables and graphs displaying important variables can be enough to make a compelling argument.Successful Paper Topics from Previous YearsYour graduate career (indeed your entire career) will depend on your ability to identify interesting questions. For this reason, we will not give you a list of topics. Instead, we mention here, by way of illustration, some topics that have been successful in the past and suggest ways of finding similarly successful topics.The easiest type of paper to write is a critique of an existing paper. Is there selection bias? Has the author omitted a key variable? One student noticed a footnote in a paper that said one observation had been left out of the figure because it was large relative to the others, but that this same extreme observation was included in the empirical analysis. The student got the data and showed that the published results depended crucially on this one observation. Few events have no historical antecedents. If there is a modern development you are interested in, you could look for its historical roots or counterparts. For example, much has been written about the advent of the Internet. How do its development and impact compare to those of the telegraph? Of the telephone? Radio? Television? While it is not generally a good idea to let data availability drive your topic, serendipity can play a role. Have you come across an unusual source in the library? Is there an interesting question that this source could be used to answer? One student came across the catalogs for the 1851 World’s Fair. She had the idea that these descriptions of what each country exhibited could be used as a measure of innovation. She wrote a paper looking at the industrial composition of innovation across countries. Another student was browsing newspapers from San Francisco in the 1870s. He found classified ads that read something like: "Wanted—man to work in store and loan store $1000." This student wondered why companies would tie employment and loans. He wrote a paper investigating whether ads such as these were a sign of credit market imperfections or a way of ensuring worker loyalty and honesty.You might take a hypothesis in the historical literature and suggest a new way of testing it. An example of this type of paper involves the debate over how business cycles have changed over time. One researcher suggested that instead of attempting to parse the implications of very imperfect estimates of real GDP, one could look at stock prices as an indicator of the volatility of the macroeconomy. History is full of natural experiments: borders are redrawn, a war is fought, new regulation is imposed. Often such experiments can be used to answer important questions in economics--for example, what the changing speed with which liberty ships were built during World War II tells us about the extent of learning by doing.ReadingsReadings are available on the web or, where there exists no web-based copy, at Graduate Services at 208 Doe Library. There can be high demand for the readings on reserve at peak times, and the library can make available only limited numbers of copies. In past years, students have found it useful to purchase some of the books from which material is assigned through their favorite online book seller and to assemble the materials for reproduction at a local copy shop.January 17. The Malthusian Economy (DeLong) Richard Steckel (2008), "Biological Measures of the Standard of Living," Journal of Economic Perspectives 22:1 Winter), pp. 129-52 Finley (1965), "Technical Innovation and Economic Progress in the Ancient World," Economic History Review NS 18:1, pp. 29-45 Diamond (1987), “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race”, DiscoverAlberto Alesina, Paola Giuliano, and Nathan Nunn. 2013. “On the Origins of Gender Roles: Women and the Plough.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 128 (May), pp. 469–530. Gregory Clark (2005), “Living Standards and the Logic of the Malthusian Era," draft of A Farewell to Alms (published version: Princeton University Press, 2007), , Clark (2005), “The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1209–2004,” Journal of Political Economy 113 (December), pp. 1307–1340 stable/pdfplus/10.1086/ .pdfJanuary 24. Revving Up Progress: Commercial Revolutions (DeLong)J. Bradford DeLong and Andrei Shleifer (1993), “Princes and Merchants: European City Growth before the Industrial Revolution,” Journal of Law & Economics 36, pp. 671-702. Jeremiah E. Dittmar (2011), “Information Technology and Economic Change: The Impact of the Printing Press,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (August), pp. 1133–1172. Voigtl?nder and Hans-Joachim Voth (2013), “The Three Horsemen of Riches: Plague, War, and Urbanization in Early Modern Europe,” Review of Economic Studies 80 (May), pp. 774–811. Broadberry (2013), “Accounting for the Great Divergence,” unpublished manuscript, London School of Economics, Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson (2005), "The Rise of Europe: Atlantic Trade, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth," American Economic Review 95:3, pp. 546-79. 31. The Industrial Revolution (DeLong)Pol Antràs and Hans-Joachim Voth (2003), “Factor Prices and Productivity Growth during the British Industrial Revolution,” Explorations in Economic History 40 (January), pp. 52–77. science/article/pii/S0014498302000244/pdfft?md5=349ca4b07574f1bd1bd2d7058f76879d&pid=1-s2.0-S0014498302000244-main.pdf Peter Temin. 1997, “Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution,” Journal of Economic History 57 (March), pp.63–82. stable/pdfplus/2951107.pdf Stephen Nicholas and Richard H. Steckel (1991), “Heights and Living Standards of English Workers during the Early Years of Industrialization, 1770–1815,” Journal of Economic History 51 (December), pp.937–957. stable/pdfplus/2123399.pdf Robert C. Allen (2011), “Why the Industrial Revolution Was British: Commerce, Induced Invention and the Scientific Revolution,” Economic History Review 64, pp. 357-384. Crafts (2002), "The Solow Productivity Paradox in Historical Perspective," CEPR Discussion Paper no.3142 Jeffrey Williamson (1984), "Why Was British Economic Growth So Slow During the Industrial Revolution?" Journal of Economic History 44, pp.687-712 7. Modern Economic Growth (DeLong)Michael Kremer (1993), "Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990," Quarterly Journal of Economics 108:3 (August), pp. 681-716 William D. Nordhaus (1997), “Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not.” In The Economics of New Goods, edited by Timothy F. Bresnahan and Robert J. Gordon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press for NBER, pp. 29– 66. Dave Donaldson (2016), “Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure,” forthcoming, American Economic Review. . Bradford DeLong (1991), “Did J. P. Morgan’s Men Add Value? An Economist’s Perspective on Financial Capitalism”, in Inside the Business Enterprise: Historical Perspectives on the Use of Information edited by Peter Temin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press for NBER), pp. 205–236. Acemoglu and Joshua Angrist (2001), “How Large are Human-Capital Externalities? Evidence from Compulsory Schooling Laws,” NBER Macroeconomic Annual 2000, pp.9-74 Thompson (2001). “How Much Did the Liberty Shipbuilders Learn? New Evidence for an Old Case Study,” Journal of Political Economy 109 (February), pp.103–137. stable/pdfplus/10.1086/318605.pdf February 14. Unfreedom (DeLong)Robert Brenner (1976), "Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,” Past & Present 70 (Feb.), pp. 30-75 Nunn (2008), “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123 (February), pp.139–176. Stanley Engerman and Kenneth Sokoloff (1994), "Factor Endowments, Institutions and Differential Paths of Development among New World Economies: A View from Economic Historians of the United States," NBER Working Paper no. 10066 Ralph Austen and Woodruff D. Smith (1992), "Private Tooth Decay as Public Economic Virtue: The Slave-Sugar Triangle, Consumerism, and European Industrialization," in Joseph E. Imkori and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., The Atlantic Slave Trade (Durham, N.C., Duke University Press, pp. 183-203 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848), "Manifesto of the Communist Party" Naidu and Noam Yuchtman (2013), “Coercive Contract Enforcement: Law and the Labor Market in Nineteenth Century Industrial Britain,” American Economic Review 103 (February), pp.107–144. February 21. Comparative Development and Underdevelopment (DeLong)Karl Marx (1853),"The Future Results of British Rule in India," New York Daily Tribune (August 8) Lant Pritchett (1997), "Divergence, Big Time," Journal of Economic Perspectives (Summer), pp. 3-17, Gregory Clark (1987), “Why Isn’t the Whole World Developed? Lessons from the Cotton Mills,” Journal of Economic History 47 (March), pp.141–173. stable/pdfplus/2121943.pdf W. Arthur Lewis (1978), Evolution of the International Economic Order (Princeton, Princeton Univ. Press), pp. 2-25, 38-57 Dani Rodrik (1995), "Getting Interventions Right: How South Korea and Taiwan Grew Rich," Economic Policy 20, pp. 55-107, Susan Wolcott and Gregory Clark (1999), "Why Nation's Fail: Managerial Decisions and Performance in Indian Cotton Textiles, 1890-1938," Journal of Economic History, June February 28. Inequality (DeLong) Branko Milanovic, Peter H. Lindert, and Jeffrey G. Williamson (2010), “Pre-Industrial Inequality”, Economic Journal Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman (2014), “Capital Is Back: Wealth-Income Ratios in Rich Countries 1700–2010,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 129 (August), pp/.255–1310. Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz (2008), The Race between Education and Technology. Chapter 8, “The Race between Education and Technology.” Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, pp. 287–323. Jason Long and Joseph Ferrie (2013), “Intergenerational Occupational Mobility in Great Britain and the United States since 1850,” American Economic Review 103 (June), pp.1109–1137. March 7. American Exceptionalism (Eichengreen)Kenneth Sokoloff (1984), “Was the Transition from the Artisanal Shop to the Non-Mechanized Factory Associated with Gains in Efficiency?” Explorations in Economic History 21, pp. 351-382. Acemoglu (2010), “When Does Labor Scarcity Encourage Innovation?” Journal of Political Economy 188, pp.1037-1078. Dave Donaldson and Richard Hornbeck (2016), “Railroads and American Economic Growth: A ‘Market Access’ Approach,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 131 (2), pp.799-858. Alfred Chandler (1990), Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, Chapter 3, pp. 47-89. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. On reserve at Graduate Services.March 14. Capital Markets (Eichengreen)Naomi Lamoreaux (1986), “Banks, Kinship, and Economic Development: The New England Case,” Journal of Economic History 46, pp. 647-667. E. Davis (1965), “The Investment Market, 1870-1914: The Evolution of a National Market,” Journal of Economic History 25, pp. 355-393. Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie (1996), “Universal Banks and German Industrialization: A Reappraisal,” Economic History Review 49:3, pp. 427-446. Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (2013), “Financial and Sovereign Debt Crises: Some Lessons Learned and Those Forgotten,” IMF Working Paper no. WP/13/266 (December) 21. Labor Markets (Eichengreen)Sanford Jacoby (1984), Employing Bureaucracy: Managers, Unions and the Transformation of Work in American Industry 1900-1945, Chapters 1 and 2, pp.13-64. New York: Columbia University Press. On reserve at Graduate Services.Susan Carter and Elizabeth Savoca (1990), “Labor Mobility and Lengthy Jobs in 19th Century America,” Journal of Economic History 50, pp. 1-16. Goldin, Claudia and Kenneth Sokoloff (1984), “The Relative Productivity Hypothesis of Industrialization: The American Case, 1820 to 1850,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 99, pp.461-487. Claudia Goldin (2001), “The Human-Capital Century and American Leadership: Virtues of the Past,” Journal of Economic History 61, pp.263-292. Martha Bailey (2013), “Fifty Years of Family Planning: New Evidence on the Long-Run Effects of Increasing Access to Contraception,” NBER Working Paper no. 19493. April 4. International Money and Finance (Eichengreen)Michael Bordo and Hugh Rockoff (1996), “The Gold Standard as a ‘Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” Journal of Economic History 56, pp.389-428, Hugh Rockoff (1984), “Some Evidence on the Real Price of Gold, Its Costs of Production and Commodity Prices,” in Michael Bordo and Anna J. Schwartz (eds.), A Retrospective on the Classical Gold Standard,” pp. 613-650. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weber (2016), “A Bitcoin Standard: Lessons from the Gold Standard,” Bank of Canada Staff Working Paper no.2016-14, April 12. Origins of the Great Depression (Eichengreen)Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz (1963), A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960, Chapter 13, pp. 676-700. Princeton: Princeton University Press. On reserve at Graduate Services.Gary Richardson and William Troost (2009), “Monetary Intervention Mitigated Banking Panics during the Great Depression: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Federal Reserve District Border in Mississippi, 1929 to 1933,” Journal of Political Economy 117 (6), pp.1031-1073. Christina Romer (1990), "The Great Crash and the Onset of the Great Depression," Quarterly Journal of Economics 104, pp. 719-736. Bernanke (1995), “The Macroeconomics of the Great Depression: A Comparative Approach,” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 27:1, pp. 1-28. 19. Recovery from the Great Depression (Eichengreen)Christina Romer (1992), “What Ended the Great Depression?” Journal of Economic History 52, pp. 757-784. Eggertsson (2008), “Great Expectations and the End of the Great Depression,” American Economic Review 98:4, pp. 1476-1516. Charles Calomiris, Joseph Mason and David Wheelock (2011), “Did Doubling Reserve Requirements Create the Recession of 1937-8?” NBER Working Paper no.16688 (January). Joshua Hausman (2016), “Fiscal Policy and Economic Recovery: The Case of the 1936 Veterans’ Bonus,” American Economic Review 106, pp.1100-1143 26. The Golden Age and the Great CompressionClaudia Goldin (1991), “The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women’s Employment,” American Economic Review 81 (4), pp.741-756. Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo (1992), “The Great Compression: The U.S. Wage Structure at Midcentury,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 107 (1), pp.1-34. HYPERLINK "" Gavin Wright (1987), “The Economic Revolution in the American South,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 1 (1), pp.161-178. Taylor Jaworski (2017), “World War II and the Industrialization of the American South,” NBER Working Paper no. 23477 (2017). ................
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